After getting off the plane in Sydney Australia, Democracy Now! headed to the home of Natalina Ramos Horta. She’s the mother of Nobel Peace Prize winner, Jose Ramos Horta, who traveled the world for a quarter of a century, pleading East Timor’s cause. Jose Ramos Horta is the first Foreign Minister of an independent East Timor. We’ll speak with him tomorrow in here in Dili. But right now, back to Australia, with his mother,...

As they organize against the US/British war of Afghanistan, peace activists in the US are confronting the challenge of how preserve civil liberties and security while working for peace and addressing the root causes of terrorism. Few people are more qualified to address these questions than Johan Galtung. And today we will spend the hour with him.

Yesterday, the Archbishop Desmond Tutu spoke for the Ecumenical Caucus at the World Conference Against Racism. TheEcumenical Caucus, which has been meeting throughout the conference, includes of delegations from the World Councilof Churches, South Africa Council of Churches, the Lutheran World Federation, the United Methodist Church (U.S.), theUnited Church of Christ (U.S.), the Presbyterian Church (U.S.), and others.

The East Timorese independence leader and Nobel Peace Prize winner Jose Ramos Horta is testifying at the United Nations de-colonization hearings on East Timor. On Tuesday, he said that he would accept an offer for immediate limited autonomy within Indonesia and a five-year delay on a referendum on the permanent status of the territory. Horta refused however to recognize Indonesian sovereignty in the meantime.

Today, December 10th, is International Human Rights Day. In Oslo, Norway, activist Jody Williams and the International Campaign to Ban Landmines accepted the Nobel Peace Prize for their remarkable efforts against war and the weapons of war. Earlier this month, 122 countries gathered in Vancouver, Canada, to sign a treaty banning landmines. Notably absent from the signatories was the United States.

The Nobel Peace prize was awarded today to the US-based International Campaign to Ban Landmines and its coordinator Jody Williams, a long-time peace activist. The Nobel Committee cited the campaign for turning a vision to ban landmines into a feasible reality.